Polling, shmolling... if there's ever an indication that the No on I-1163 campaign is pushing a losing cause, you need look no further than the woman running it: Cindi Laws, the Chicago Cubs of Seattle political consultants.

Laws, the former Seattle Monorail board member who lost her 2005 reelection bid to Beth Goldberg after infamously accusing all us Jews of sticking together, has in recent years established herself as the consultant of choice for campaigns that appear to have no other options. You'll surely remember Laws from such electoral hits as 2007's "Maria Ramirez for Seattle School Board," or 2008's crowd pleasing "George Fearing for Congress." And then there was the blockbuster mayoral campaign she engineered in 2009, in which she helped shape former WSU and Sonics star hoopster James Donaldson into a fourth-place primary loser.

Of course, 2009 was also the year Laws finally landed a winner—current Seattle City Attorney but then-challenger Pete Holmes—only to turn around and dump him for the opportunity to manage the campaign of his incumbent opponent, Tom Carr, who ultimately went on to lose reelection in the biggest upset of the season. Way to pick 'em, Cindi!

To be blunt: Hiring Laws to manage your campaign is pretty much the political equivalent of "Death with Dignity." Except without the dignity.

Which brings us back to the polling, and a memo Laws has been sending around touting an internal poll that shows I-1163 losing support after respondents hear a series of negative messages: "Support for the measure erodes by 18 percent, from 61 percent to 43 percent," Laws declares, before going on to make up a bunch of other numbers about I-1163, an initiative that would reinstate training and background check requirements for long-term healthcare workers.

But even the No campaign's own biased poll—largely intended to test the effectiveness of a series of negative messages—starts off by showing the initiative passing with 61 percent support. Not the 77 percent support shown in last week's Elway Poll (a number, I'm told, that's similar to the Yes campaign's internal polling), but not too shabby nonetheless. And, even after testing all their negative messaging, they couldn't even manage to push the No vote up over 47 percent.

This poll does indicate that given a completely one-sided campaign in which only the No message is heard, and that message is meticulously and coherently crafted, I-1163 could be defeated. But that's not gonna happen. First of all, at last count, the Yes campaign had already out-raised the No campaign by about 40 to 1, and while much of that Yes money has already been spent to get I-1163 on the ballot, there's plenty more where that came from. Second of all, Laws is no more capable of crafting a coherent message than she was of explaining away her assertion that the Jews killed the Monorail. (First we killed Christ, and then the Monorail. Killing things is what we do, I guess.)

But the biggest reason Laws' polling memo is little more than wishful thinking on the part of Laws and her adult family home industry backers, is that the only poll that really counts is the one that's held on Election Day, and this is an issue that has already come before voters, recently passing by a 73-27 margin in 2008, and in all 39 counties. Training and certifying long-term care workers just makes sense.

Which I guess explains the other made-up numbers in Laws press release. For example, the question in the poll claims I-1163 will cost taxpayers $60 million over two years. The memo ups that figure to $80 million. But the fiscal note provided by the Office of Financial Management pegs the figure at only $13 million.

But then, I suppose, a campaign that's reduced to hiring Laws is a campaign that's not above lying.